


New Everything

by Goldy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-08 19:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1952748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Same man, new face. Well… new everything.</i> Rose adjusts. Post Christmas Invasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Everything

_You’re so different._  
New, new Doctor.

She senses his embarrassment at her constant staring, and she wishes she could stop, but she can’t. She _can’t_.

She doesn’t know what to tell him. She has to learn him all over again. All the little parts that are different and the same. He’s still the _Doctor_ , after all. And she’s still Rose Tyler—who's supposed to know him best in the world.

So she stares. She studies the dusting of freckles across his nose, the new pinstripes suit he’s chosen for himself, and the _very same way_ he strokes the TARDIS. He clucks his tongue now when he’s bored. He smiles more—no, not just smiles, he _beams_. (She likes it best when he beams at her. Like she’s made his day just by showing up.)

Secretly, some part of her can’t help but think that if she could have special ordered and sent away for her very own Doctor, he’d look like this. And then she feels terrible because she never, not once, would have asked for him to change.

But he has.

She finally turns her gaze away, hot blush coming into her cheeks.

He doesn’t ask her again if she wants to go home and she doesn’t bring it up.

***

“What do you think?”

He looks so eager. He’s been dragging her backwards and forwards across the universe since Christmas, barely stopping long enough to let her sleep.

She understands, of course. He wants to show her that it’s still _him_. Still the Doctor. Still trying to impress her.

Something glib hovers on the tip of her tongue. _You think you’re so impressive._ But there’s something like tenuous hope in his eyes and she can’t bear to let him down.

“Amazing,” she says.

But she really— _really_ —has no idea where they are. She’s studying _him_ , as usual. She’s not even sure what she’s looking for anymore. The old him? (And that’s not even true, is it? There is no such thing as the “old” him—it’s all the same man.)

His eyes brighten, grin beginning to tug at his mouth. “Yeah?”

She likes that new grin of his. She thinks she might be drunk on it. There’s something about it—about _him_. She wants to grab onto his arm and let him sweep her into another adventure. She wants to laugh and skip and hop.

She wonders if this is what it’s like to fall in love.

***

“What do you need the glasses for?”

She swings around the console and then perches next to him, staring thoughtfully into his face.

He’s looking intently into the vidscreen, sonic screwdriver in one hand, and his tongue poking thoughtfully out of his mouth. “Hmm?”

“Your glasses,” she repeats. “I mean, you’re not blind, obviously. So I can’t quite figure it out.” She pauses. “Do they help you do science?”

“What?” he sputters. He turns towards her, ripping his glasses off his nose and giving her an accusing look. “Rose Tyler, I’ve never needed anything to help me do science.”

“Alright, then,” Rose says. “So they help you read?”

“I know how to—”

“Fix the TARDIS?”

“I’d like to see you try and—”

“Solve complex equations?”

He stares at her like she’s speaking a foreign language. “Have you ever thought,” he says slowly. “That maybe I’m farsighted?”

Rose raises her eyebrows. “You know what I think?” she says, leaning a little closer. “I think you wear them ‘cause you think they make you look smart.”

He goes a little cross-eyed trying to keep his gaze on her face. “ _Well_ ,” he says, like the idea has just occurred to him. “Is it working?”

It’s not a _bad_ look, not really… even if it sort of makes him look like a geek. She tries to remember her old Doctor in the same glasses and it makes her smile.

“Course it is,” she tells him.

He “hmms” in vague approval. He’s close enough so that she can’t help but wonder what it’d be like to move a little bit closer, press her lips to his—just to see. She thinks he might go for it, this Doctor. She thinks he wouldn’t need much coaxing. That he might be willing, even.

He turns back to the console and clears his throat. “I’m farsighted in this body, Rose,” he says.

She doesn’t know if she believes him.

***

She likes to test him.

“Do you remember that time we danced across the grating?” she asks.

And he’ll respond with one of his own. “Do _you_ remember meeting your first Dalek? Suppose I could have given you a bit of a warning, eh? What was it I said then?” He frowns, and turns a dial on the console. “I _said_ —I said that it was the only one left, that I’d won the Time War. Turned out to be wrong about that, wasn’t I? Never make presumptions, Rose Tyler. Never. And never say the word ‘never.’ That never does any good.”

She presses her face to his shoulder to muffle a chuckle, happy when he picks up on the clue and gives her a one-armed hug. He’s more affectionate in this body, and she likes it—she likes that his hugs linger, that she doesn’t have to try hard to get close to him.

He smiles down at her, and then pulls down on the lever. The TARDIS jerks and they have to let go of each other to hold on.

She can’t help but giggle after she gets dumped on the floor. She turns her head and sees the Doctor laughing next to her. They share a grin and then he bounds to his feet, reaching for her hand.

“C’mon, here we are,” he says. “You’ll like this place.”

She doesn’t have to tell him that she likes every place—even the ones where they almost get killed.

_Can I just say? Traveling with you… I love it.  
Me, too._

  



End file.
